Appeal No. 94-4291
Application No. 07/627,009
Eckberg and Drahnak in rejecting dependent claims drawn to the
specific photoinitiators now recited in independent claims 1
and 21. Quite clearly, the examiner has committed6
inadvertent error in failing to include the Gruber and
McDowell references in the obviousness-type double patenting
rejection advanced on this appeal against independent claims 1
and 21. Nevertheless, since the appellants in their brief
have presented explicit arguments relative to the obviousness
of combining Eckberg with Gruber or McDowell, this inadvertent
error on the examiner's part is harmless. Therefore, we shall
address below the subject rejection of claims 1 and 21 as
though it included the Gruber and McDowell references as well
as the appellants' arguments concerning these references.
On page 15 of the brief, the appellants present the
following succinct exposition of their nonobviousness
position:
Because of the lack of suggestion in the claims of
Boardman to use a photoinitiator, because of
Eckberg's failure to disclose or suggest the
specific photoinitiators recited in the claims of
the present application, and because McDowell and
6We again emphasize that independent claim 45 is not
limited to such specific photoinitiators.
8
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